Thank You For the Music
by HecateA
Summary: Hope Lupin is a Muggle, and there are a lot of things about the magical world that she doesn't understand. But she can give her son music and hope that it carries him home at the end of the day. Oneshot.


**Do you know what happens when you only listen to the Mama Mia soundtrack for three weeks and are just generally sad about Remus Lupin? This fic. But it ended hopeful! So hurray!**

**Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.**

**Warnings: ****Depression, grief, illness, canon character deaths**

* * *

**Stacked with: **Shipping Wars, Spring Bingo, Therapeutic Theorems of Tessellations, Starry Strums, Fem Power Challenge

**Individual Challenge(s): **Gryffindor MC (x2); Slytherin MC; Hufflepuff MC; Bow Before the Blacks; Seeds; Tiny Terror; Long Haul

**Representation(s):** Piano, music, perfect pitch, Lupin family, friendship, caregiving, grief, illness, depression, support system, budding romance, art therapy

**Bonus Challenge(s): **Persistence still, Not a Lamp, Wabi Sabi, Getting Together, Pining

**Tertiary Bonus Challenge(s): **Tether

**Word Count:** 3418

**_Spring Bingo entry information:_**

**Space Address : **3A

**Prompt:** Dance/Music

* * *

**Thank You for the Music **

* * *

Lyall slid onto the piano bench next to her, and made room for him without interrupting the sonata she was playing. When she was done, he clapped for her, and she turned around smiling. The baby was nestled in the crook of his arm.

"He likes to hear you play, I'm sure of it," Lyall said.

"Not when it's Chopin, he doesn't," Hope laughed.

"Maybe he's not a Romantic," Lyall posited.

"No, no, no. Tchaikovsky he likes. He's already my little musician," Hope said, reaching out to fuss with the baby's swaddling.

* * *

"Mrs. Lupin!" a trio of little girls chimed.

"Hi sweethearts," Hope said, opening her arms in time to catch her former students in a hug. "How are you doing?"

"We don't have music class anymore," Anna said sternly. "We miss you."

"I miss you too," Hope said, tugging on the girl's braid. "But chin up. They'll find a new music teacher for you soon. Maybe in time for the Christmas pageant."

"Is your little boy okay? Headmaster said that he was sick." Mary Ellen asked.

Hope chewed her lip. Remus hadn't been out of the house much since he'd… been bitten. She knew that the village was talking, but what was there to do? St. Mungo's had released Remus weeks ago and some of the injuries had healed. But…

"He's doing better," Hope said carefully. "But I think I'll have to stay home with him for a little while longer."

They'd moved long before Christmas.

* * *

"Hello lovely," Hope said. "Come here."

She helped Remus hop onto the piano bench with her, and then pulled him so he sat on her knee.

"Here's something you can do even when you're tired, even when you're achy, even when you're hurt," Hope said. She kissed his cheek, keenly aware that there was a new there that would probably scar over. "It's something that will always be beautiful, even if the world isn't. Come on, lovely. Put your hands on the piano, stretch your fingers…"

"I'm not allowed to touch the piano," Remus gasped.

"Of course, you can," Hope said. "And you'll play it too."

* * *

Mum put a hand on Remus' back.

"Sit up straight lovely," she said quietly. "You don't want to hurt yourself."

Remus sat up straighter and began playing again, his fingers running over the piano's keys.

"Beautiful, Remus," she said. "You've been playing that song a lot recently."

"Don't you like it?" the little boy asked her. His worried tone was echoed by the crinkle that appeared between his eyebrows.

"I love it," Hope said. "I love everything you play. It's just… a very sad song. From a very sad ballet."

"Yeah," Remus said chewing his lip. "Do you want me to play something happy?"

"I want you to _feel_ happy," Hope said.

Remus nodded absently and that scared her.

* * *

"He picked out your gift all by himself," Lyall whispered to her just before Remus swung into the room, holding the prettily-wrapped box.

"Sit with me while I open it," Hope said. Remus curled up next to her and she unwrapped the gift to find an old music box with spindly legs and roses drawn on the lid. When she opened it, out came Tchaikovsky.

"Do you like it?"

"Do I like it? Oh, lovely, it's amazing," Hope said kissing the top of his head. His face split into a grin.

"It was in the shop where Dad had to go fix the Boggart," Remus said.

"Well, I'm glad you found it," Hope said, shutting the music box.

* * *

"Good news: the map's working," James said, pulling off the cloak when he walked into the room. He looked around. "I didn't know we had a music-room…"

"We do," Remus said, turning back from the piano.

"My parents tried to make me take music classes," James said. "That wasn't really ADHD compatible, so we swiftly moved onto Quidditch, but you sound great. Neary makes me regret not knowing how to play."

"Why, does Evans like music?" Remus asked.

James elbowed her. And then grinned.

"Actually, yeah. She actually wanted to dance when we went to the Three Broomsticks."

"Lily Evans?" Remus gasped. "_Dancing _with James Potter? To the sound of music?"

He said it teasingly, but he knew that James loved it since his friend's only response was staring at his shoes and grinning to himself.

"I'm happy for you," Remus said.

* * *

Was James expecting to return from his morning job to the sound of the Muggle radio blasting and Remus and Lily bickering in the kitchen about what to put in the pancake batter? Absolutely, actually. It was Sunday; sometimes he woke up to it.

He stood by the back door and listened to them settle their dispute with copious handfuls of chocolate chips. Lily's current favourite song came on the radio. She squealed and took Remus' hands to dance. He laughed and pulled away to pour batter onto the hot pan, which only led to Lily pulling at his arm more insistently.

"Lily, we're going to burn the pancakes," Remus said. Still, he spun her around.

"We'll make more!" Lily said.

Remus grinned and flipped his pancake. James walked in, caught Lily's hand, and pulled her close.

"I'll dance with you."

"Morning," Lily smiled, shifting onto her toes to kiss him, which was kind of her considering he hadn't brushed his teeth yet.

"Morning Moony," James called.

"Morning," Remus called. "Coffee's on. Also, you should know that Sirius is sleeping on your couch. You should probably ask him why that is and why we're here so early."

"Don't," Sirius moaned.

James cranked the radio up. Sirius groaned.

"Prooooongs," he said.

"No, don't give him pity," Remus said.

"What's he done?"

"He flooded our flat."

"Did you now? And how'd you manage that, Sirius?" James asked.

"Padfoot likes to chew things," Sirius moaned. "It's not my fault."

"It actually does sound like it's your fault," James said. "We've been over this with the whole 'peeing on trees' scenario as well. You don't have to listen to _all _the animal instincts you get."

"Especially when you're drunk," Remus added helpfully.

"You aren't supposed to transform when you're drunk," James said.

"In my defense, Fabian Prewett got me drunk."

"That's not a defense mate, you're also not supposed to be sleeping around with Fabian Prewett. Not after what happened last time," James said. "Merlin, what a series of bad decisions you've made."

He turned the radio up some more and pulled Lily into a dance.

"I'm putting in more chocolate chips," Remus informed the household, even if nobody was paying attention to him. "Peter had this plan to casually find himself at the Three Broomsticks in Aurora Sinistra's company last night, and I'm fairly certain it'll end in heartbreak. He's going to need this."

"Put them in," Lily nodded. She let go of James' hand. "Poor dear."

"Poor rat," James corrected her. She gave him a look. "Please don't leave me."

"You'll find out if I decided to stay when you get back from brushing your teeth," Lily said.

He kissed her forehead, grabbed a cup of coffee. He'd made it up the stairs, through a shower, had pulled on jeans, and was halfway through brushing his teeth when the first bars of _Uptown Girl _resounded. He heard Lily call out his name and rushed down the stairs with a toothbrush in his mouth, just in time to slide into the kitchen_. _Lily laughed when she saw him, but not hard enough to stop dancing.

Remus rolled his eyes at the antics, and begrudgingly gave Sirius a mug of coffee.

"It's got sugar, cream, and a potion for your headache," Remus said.

"Thank you. Are you still mad at me?"

"I haven't even decided what I'm mad at you for—flooding our flat or sleeping with Fabian," Remus said.

The conversation stopped there when an ABBA song came on, and Lily completely abandoned James to pull Sirius in for _their _song. James perched himself on the counter next to Remus, holding out the pancake plate in time to catch the next one.

"Hey," he said more quietly. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," Remus said quietly. That was a lie; he felt sore and tense, his senses were overstimulated, his head felt foggy, and his mouth tasted like copper. Typical full-moon stuff. "I like the music."

He looked over his shoulder, watching Lily and Sirius calling each other Dancing Queens.

* * *

"Here you are," he said bringing Mum her cup of tea.

He'd moved back home for the time being—someone had to be around. Mum was getting too sick to be alone and Dad was too devastated to focus and keep track of medication and doctor's appointments. Boggarts he could manage, and there was a whole other slew of magical creatures he could take care of. People, he was a bit less… inclined towards. It was bad enough that Mum was sick, but with a Muggle illness he had never even _heard _of before? It was too much for Dad. But in some skewed way, the fact that every facet of his life was falling apart at the same time meant that Remus had been both too numbed and overstimulated to really feel the brunt of things since Halloween and the funerals.

"Thank you lovely," she said. She looked at the pills on the saucer and winced.

"Take them with water, Mum," Remus said, repositioning the blanket over her shoulders.

"I want to hear you play instead," Mum said.

"Okay, I will. Can you please take your medicine?"

"Oh, Remus," she sighed. "I…"

"Okay," he said. "Okay, what should I play?"

* * *

It didn't take long for Remus to settle into his office, which gave him time to explore the castle. He couldn't help but feel as if Hogwarts was now irreversibly different without having changed at all. Even without the Marauder's map he found his way around the castle quite easily (having been the one to arithmetically plot out its inner-workings and charm work and all). And then he found it: the music-room.

Two upper-level students were sitting on the piano bench, picking at a guitar and trying to reconstruct what sounded like the Hogwarts school song. Then the girl strummed the wrong cord, and they broke out into giggles. The other girl kissed her and urged her to try again.

Remus smiled and walked away.

* * *

Sirius had been spending most of his time as Padfoot, which was helpful to Remus insofar as keeping the convinct harboured in his cottage was concerned. Unhelpful because Remus was rather sure that this was symptomatic of… Well, something. Remus wasn't quite sure, but he knew that Azkaban had changed his friend.

He set the kettle on the stovetop and turned around to look at the black dog curled onto the couch.

"Muggle radio or Wizard radio?"

The dog's head cocked to the side.

"You can either change back and answer, or you can bark once for Muggle radio and twice for Wizard," Remus said.

Sirius barked once—most likely because the Muggles weren't talking about Terrifying Escaped Convict and Mass Murderer Sirius Black anymore. Remus turned on the radio and, thankfully, Whitney Houston was there.

"Sirius," Remus said. "Come on. You have to come sing this…"

The dog didn't move too much. So Remus took a dive off the deep end and started dancing. He felt silly and stupid but kept going with it. The dog's tail started wagging.

"I want to dance…" Remus started singing. "Clocks strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade… Still enough time to figure out, how to chase my blues away. I've done alright up 'til now. It's the light of day that shows me how… And when the night falls… Loneliness calls…"

Sirius turned back into a human. He side-eyed Remus, trying to hide a grin. Remus kept going, becoming more dramatic and making an even bigger fool of himself, if that was possible.

"Oh! I want to dance with somebody…"

Remus didn't mind the half-hidden half-grin. Maybe Sirius would dance tomorrow, but for now listening to the music was enough.

* * *

Grimmauld Place, as Sirius had warned Remus ahead of time, was shitty. But Remus was going to stay there for Sirius' sake—to help him remember to eat, drink, shower, and just generally manage symptoms and keep it together.

He tried to frame the move back to Grimmauld Place as an adventure. The flood of children in the house was helping, since they were all eager to help and giggle at odd discoveries and throw gnome feces at each other. Well, the twins were doing that, at least. Hermione wasn't quite so keen. Remus also had hope that Sirius might feel better when Harry finally joined them. He had half a mind to ask Dumbledore to move that day up…

The discovery of _another _parlour behind a barricaded door shouldn't have surprised anyone given how intricate and elegant the old house was, but it did.

"Oh right," Sirius said looking around. "Well, any good pureblood education has a music component for the culture of it."

"That's true," Tonks said. "Mum's a great piano player. That's how she and Dad met actually—in this music-room in Hogwarts. It was all very scandalous."

"So Sirius, how many instruments can you play?" Ron asked.

"None," Sirius scoffed. "I'm one hell of a dancer though. This one time…"

"Moving swiftly along," Remus said, clearing his throat. "Let's start dusting off these instruments and see which ones are still in fair shape."

"The piano should be fine," Sirius said. "They replaced it just before I left."

"Good, that would be a pain to lug out," Tonks said.

* * *

Remus was playing his sad song to try and get the latest bad news from the Order meeting out of his system before going to Sirius.

"I'd clap but that feels cheesy."

He spun around and saw Tonks leaning in the doorway. The way that her head was resting against the doorframe and her relaxed posture made him think that she'd… actually been listening for a while.

"Sorry," she said straightening up. She hit her elbow against the other side of the door. "_Fuck. _I mean, sorry for eavesdropping…"

"No, it's fine," Remus said. He rubbed the back of his head. "It's not exactly subtle, when the house is so quiet."

"I heard you from downstairs, yeah. I suppose that's a Muggle composer, you were playing?" Tonks said nodding her head towards the piano.

"Yes," Remus said.

Tonks nodded. "My mum made me memorize the names of all the wizarding ones, but I knew I'd heard Dad play this at some point."

And before Remus knew it, she'd tricked him into their first serious, non-Voldemort-related conversation.

* * *

"Show me," Dora said one day. He'd started thinking of her as Dora, not Tonks, and was trying to undo that as quickly as possible.

She sat down on the piano bench next to him, boldly. "Think of it as a favour—to get back in my parents' good books."

"What have you done?"

"Merlin, what haven't I?" she scoffed.

"Alright," Remus said, smiling. Then he realized that this was actually horrifyingly nerve-wracking, not to mention that she was sitting very _very _close, which meant that there was no time for smiling. "Well, when's the last time you played?"

"Before I even went to Hogwarts," she said, chewing her lip.

Remus started playing the Chopsticks on the piano and she hit his arm.

"I'm not _that _horrible," she said.

"Okay," Remus smiled. "Well, what would you like to learn? Any favourite songs?"

"What were you playing last week?" Dora said. "To cheer up Sirius?"

"Beethoven," Remus said. "'Ode to Joy.' I was trying to be ironic, but he wasn't in quite the right mood."

"'Ode to Joy,'" Dora repeaed. "Well, alright. Let's do that. I know this Beethoven person is famous enough to be decently impressive. Let's have at it, then."

* * *

"I've got something for you," Dora grinned. That could mean anything, so Remus froze. But when she motioned for him to make room on the piano bench, he did. She took her seat, looked at the piano long and hard as if she was getting her bearings, and then started playing a very slow, broken-up rendition of 'Happy Birthday.'

He laughed, and when she was done, she looked up with that crooked and teasing smile of hers.

"How'd I do?"

"Very well," he smiled. "Thank you."

* * *

He was trying to remember a song, an earworm he couldn't shake away and whose origin he couldn't remember for the life of him. He played around with the piano's keys, going up, down, fast, slow… When he tried matching lyrics to the three notes he _could _remember, it all came flowing back to him. Obviously, it was an ABBA song—courtesy of Lily Potter a million years ago, probably.

Dora came to sit by him. Remus' fingers froze. Usually she knocked before joining him in the music-room.

"Don't stop on my account," Dora said quietly. Remus bit his lip and then started over.

"Here's to us one more toast and then we'll pay the bill. Deep inside both of us can feel the autumn chill. Birds of passage, you and me, We fly instinctively… When the summer's over and the dark clouds hide the sun. Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done…"

Without meaning to, he slowed down the song. Stretched out its melody, its words, and the time Dora would spend sitting next to him listening. _Tonks, _not Dora.

But eventually, the song came to an end.

"You're so good!" She said.

"I'm far from being a rock star," Remus said.

"Well, yeah. I wouldn't want to hear you on a stage, you have the kind of voice I want to hear up close. I could sit on this bench and listen to you for hours," she said.

For a second, Remus looked genuinely confused.

"Right," he said, pulling down the lid and covering up the keys.

* * *

"He _sang _for you?" Sirius asked, stunned. "Holy shit. You got him."

"He got up and left," Tonks told him.

"Yeah, well, maybe he doesn't know yet," Sirius shrugged. He raised his beer. "To the future Nymphadora Lupin."

"Oh, come off it," she said. But the blushing and the looking away reminded Sirius of an entirely different ABBA fan falling in love with an entirely different idiot a million years ago. He smiled to himself. He'd called that one too.

* * *

When news of Ted's death had drinkled in through the resistance's networks, they'd relocated. Dora had insisted that her mother couldn't be at home alone—not with the current climate and especially not with Bellatrix Lestrange running loose—but Andromeda had refused to budge, and so they'd come to her. With his wife asleep on the couch and Andromeda quiet and solitary, there wasn't much else for Remus to do than take advantage of his mother-in-law's piano. It drew Andromeda out of the kitchen.

"What are you trying to recall?" she asked. "We have boxes and boxes of music sheets we can look through…"

"Oh, thank you," he said. "But these are just old lullabies I'm trying to remember."

Andromeda smiled. Talk of her grandchild was one of the only things that had seemed to interest her, recently. He and Dora hashed out the baby name conversation on a daily basis because of it, even if they'd already decided.

"Let me show you what Ted used to play Dora," she said. He moved over and she smoothed down her skirts before taking a seat.

* * *

She put her head on his shoulder and he stopped playing.

"Don't," Dora mumbled sleepily. "It's the only thing that's keeping Teddy asleep, I think."

He kissed her forehead and ran his thumb over the baby's hand. He was sleeping so profoundly that his hair was shifting from pinks to blues to purples, something like the Northern lights. Dora did that too sometimes.

"What do you think he likes?" Remus asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Surprise us."

Dora fell asleep against him, and Andromeda laughed when she came in and saw how he'd been trapped. She gently lifted Teddy out of his mother's arms, which meant that Remus scoop up Dora and carry her upstairs.

"Thank you for playing," she mumbled when he tucked her in. He kissed her forehead.

"And thank _you _for the music," he said.


End file.
